<p align="center" <img src="assets/docs/vela-readme-hero.jpg" width="960" alt="A sailboat follows a luminous retained route beneath a constellation, with an open horizon ahead." </p
<h1 align="center"Vela</h1
<p align="center" <strongVersion control for scientific state.</strong<br Scientific results that remain checkable, correctable, and useful. </p
<p align="center" <a href="https://vela.space"Vision</a · <a href="https://problems.science"Explore results</a · <a href="docs/QUICKSTART.md"Quickstart</a · <a href="docs/README.md"Documentation</a </p
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Vela is the open protocol for replayable, authority-scoped, correction-aware scientific state transitions. The vela CLI implements that protocol in ordinary Git repositories so results can survive handoffs between people, agents, repositories, and time.
The product loop is:
init -> submit -> verify -> decide -> replayEach result stays connected to its exact source, evidence, scoped checks, the authority that accepted or rejected it, and any correction. The record lives in Git. You can replay it without trusting a Vela server.
A Vela Repository is the local authority boundary. A Frontier is only a derived query over current Standing: it carries no authority, owns no records, and is not a persistent governed repository.
Programme context
Vela is the source-state core within the wider autonomous-science programme. It owns exact repository state, authority evaluation, replay, and portable protocol contracts; it does not own the programme's runner, scheduler, agent host, or workflow engine.
The cross-repository direction is maintained in the programme vision and repository map. The intended programme-level Frontiers layer described there is not a unified product implemented by this repository.
Where Vela fits
Native tools produce the work. Source repositories and registries retain their own identities and status. Vela preserves the reviewed handoff into scientific state that the next researcher—or agent—can inspect and build on.
<p align="center" <a href="assets/docs/vela-system-map.svg" <img src="assets/docs/vela-system-map.svg" width="960" alt="Native proofs, analyses, and source records feed a Vela Repository, where a bounded Result receives scoped checks and an attributed Decision before becoming replayable scientific state for researchers, agents, and public readers." </a </p
Vela does not replace Lean, notebooks, GitHub, source registries, or scientific judgment. It connects their outputs without turning a successful build, review, or merge into an acceptance claim.